Writer Joseph Hesch's second-chance journey to a literary life.

Part of the Job

“What’s with the thousand-mile stare?” Dr. Koch said as I gazed at nothing but a blank computer screen.

“Gave a patient the bad news. He said how pretty the prognosis sounded,” I replied.

“No two the same. Part of the job. You’re lucky to have an understanding guy like Kevin home.”

I headed down to the elevators and texted him.

Death, always death, so dense it choked me, left me weeping in the garage. I needed to see Brian again…today.

After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.

In a vain attempt to catch up with my missed stories for three days, Here’s I needed a rewrite of a story from Week 1. It’s a different look at the other 100-word drabble, Fiddleneck. I changed it to a first person narrative from the doctor’s POV who gave our patient his terminal prognosis. In addition, as I did for Fiddleneck, I used the closing line of a famous novel as the closing line for the story. In this case, Hemingway again. This time the line closes “A Farewell to Arms.” Again, not sure I’m following the rules. But rules are made to be bent and broken by writers sometimes.

Joseph Hesch is a writer and poet who lives near Albany, New York. Many of his poems and stories are inspired by his 350 year old hometown, but most spring from his many travels between his right ear and his left ear.

Member of the staff at dVerse Poets Pub and one of Writers Digest Editor Robert Lee Brewer's "2011 Best Tweeps for Writers to Follow."

One Hundred Beats A Minute

In my latest poetry collection, I convey my impressions and imaginings on life, love, art, aging, nature and what I see outside and within the swirly-glassed windows of my heart. All sixty poems, like the number of seconds in a minute, minutes in an hour, bound within the frame of one hundred words.

Penumbra: The Space Between

My debut poetry collection is available in paperback and for Kindle on Amazon.com. We'll have for iBooks very soon, as well as other outlets. If you've enjoyed my poetry here, then I'm sure you'll enjoy carrying it around with you in this book.

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Petrichor Rising

Here's the latest book in which some of my poetry appears. It's a collection of poems by the Grass Roots Poetry Group, some of my best friends from around the world...four continents' worth of the World.

Signal from Static

Some of my poetry can be found in the new anthology Signal from Static from Chromatopias